Episode 28: Not your average Sunday
"Emperor Bulblax," quoted Olimar's ship from the watch that the Captain conveniently had on, "as it's size and name suggests, it is the alpha male of the Bulblax family. Relatives include lesser Bulblax and Bulborb. The Emperor Bulblax is far older and stronger then any of it's kind, or at least, within a 500 mile radius."
Sonic looked at the monster (being a meek word for it) in wonder. He was a BIG FELLA. Sonic could feel sweat (and apparently, they can do this) starting to pour down the side of his face from the immense heat. The Emperor Bulblax spewed another torrent of fire up in the sky, which torched one of Eggman's blimps. He couldn't help but hesitate. But it was not fear that gripped him.
It was restlessness. A heightened sense of things.
If fear and worry were the same thing, then yes, Sonic would be afraid. He knew Blaze would be okay, what with her being fire associated and all, but Tails was not. He didn't plan on fighting. The course of action?..."Tails, get out of here!" he said. Tails' ears perked up at the sudden announcement of his name and looked to Sonic. He looked at the alien, gulped, then flew off.
The couple traded looks, then confronted the monster.
.(Blue Typhoon...)
Wave was complaining to herself as she and Storm were hauling two ends of two hoses that each was large enough to fit themselves in. von Dyke had ordered them to hook them up to the Blue Typhoon. But what idea did the professor have in mind?...
.(Egg Blimp...)
"Engine power down to 40 and dropping," duly noted a voice from the ship's security system, "Repeat: Engine power down to 40 and dropping!"
Sigma swiveled his head on it's axis. "Tell me some good news, gosh darnit!" he said. The monster alien was shooting down Eggman's fleet like they were fish in a barrel...well, saying the monster had a flamethrower, and the fish weren't in water. While the various blimps and bombers were heavily armored--so as to prevent an accident, like, say, the Hindenburg--the fire was more then strong enough to punch through the armor of a blimp and send it up in flames.
The Egg Blimp was little more then a flagship, being just a bit bigger then a normal one. It was only singed by the terrible monster's wrath, the sudden uproar of flames sent various flying aliens everywhere. A particularly large one landed on the Egg Blimp, and despite guns keeping the little ones at bay, the big one found chewing on the blimp's hull a tasty treat. Eggman's bigger robots, hulking robots wielding hammers and sometimes armor, were capable of destroying it, it was impossible to get them up there to take care of it.
And Sigma was not flight capable in his current body, otherwise he'd roast it's ass over the open fire down below.
"Engine power down to 35. Switching to emergency power," said the computer as Sentinel hit the last button and laid down on the consol. He sighed and said, "Whew...that was unique."
Defeated by a swarm of bugs, thought Eggman. Lose to these bugs, but not THIS one. Eggman had gotten an idea.
.(Forest below...)
If not for Blaze, he'd be a roasted hedgehog by now, Sonic thought. Several times had she had to protect him from the flames. There was more heat in Eggman's volcano base then here. Or so Sonic would like to have thought. Oh, sure, he could easily dodge the monster's fire blindfolded, but that was just it; the fire was everywhere. And I mean e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e. Like a sea of flame in an oven out in the middle of the sun on a very hot day.
And that is one mother of a fire.
They were getting nowhere, fast. And that's the only path he doesn't want speed to take him. Whatever it was von Dyke was planning, he'd better be getting to that, and quickly. Still ever confidant, though, Sonic never saw this as a problem, more like a challenge. A very life threatening one. However, he was still concerned.
"Professor..." Sonic called to his comms watch, "If you're going to make a plan, we have to stop it NOW!"
.(Blue Typhoon...)
von Dyke meddled with a few of the controls. "Now?...Oh my, we can have that in a few moments, Sonic," he said back. "That's great, but it'd be best if you hurried!" said Sonic, "That monster will have this entire forest burned down if we don't do something fast!"
"Fast?..." replied the professor, "..you want it fast?" A gleam appeared in the old man's eye at that moment from behind his monacle.
.(Battlefield...)
The monster was fully aware of the fire, and was in a constant state of fright by it, despite the fact that it was unknowingly impervious to the flames. When it learned, in a very primitive kind of way, that it was invulnerable to fire, it was still evil in a sense. In it's fiery eyes was the mind of a creature that seemed to enjoy firing flames from it's mouth at living beings.
Just the kind of villain Sonic loved to trounce.
Hiding on the back of the monster proved to be a valuable solution. It's eyes, though on stalks, seemed incapable of turning them on a 360 degree axis. Blaze proved to be quite the distraction to it, being the only living thing in it's sight. Luckily, it wasn't smart enough to figure out it had a lesser effect on her.
Despite this, the Emperor Bulblax was going to burn down every single piece of foliage in perhaps the entire region if it went unchecked. The folds of it's fatty body resisted any attack made on it, making homing attacks useless. It was impervious to Blaze's fire. The only way to seemingly beat it was to get to the stone--which the monster had eaten.
Dark smoke was clogging his senses, and while he didn't notice, the same probably went for Blaze. Sonic remembered the similar alien that was messing with the Pikmin a day before. 'That monster...I tripped it without hardly trying! That's it! This thing has to be as clumsy as the last one was!' He spotted Blaze standing before the monster, breathing heavily, and whistled. Blaze's ears perked at the noise, and made her way (quickly) through fire and flame to get behind the monster where Sonic was. "What's your plan?" she asked in a huff.
"Follow my lead. I'm about to go fast. Very fast," he said. "Like always?..." she said before Sonic jumped out from behind the monster. Here goes, he thought. Sonic ran around the monster with as much footing as was allowed. The gust kicked up dirt and dust into the air that made all view disappear for the Emperor, save for that soon enough the gust was embezzled in fire. Taking in a breath of air, he spun into the fiery vortex unharmed (though a little singed on the ends of his quills).
Inside, the monster spewed flames blindly, it's eyes close to the dirt. Sonic held a fist to his face to keep as much dust from his face as possible. In the dust he could still easily make out where it's foot was. But that foot looked smaller. It was almost as big as he was!
Putting that in the corner of his mind, he ran, full speed, and curled up, hoping to trip it. Sonic's homing attack made contact. He felt something crack under the pressure. But it wasn't the monster. Emperor Bulblax had felt the contact, and in reflex, kicked Sonic far away.
He landed some ways away from the area, covered in fire and what appeared to be his blood.
Meanwhile, Blaze, not seeing that happen, tried the same tactic with the other, only this time she had claws at the ready and she stuck to it's leg. The monster howled and stumbled to the side, stopping the fiery gust and halting it's own progress. The monster's eyes were still closed shut due to the immense amount of dirt in them. It kicked Blaze around, still stuck to it's foot. One lucky one clawed half her side and she saw in horror as it sliced through her clothes and into her skin. Blood shot out from it, but she hardly felt it.
Blaze found herself thrown up into the air and she had grabbed onto the eye stalks of the great beast. She squeezed them hard, which had a noticeable effect on it. Suddenly, great amounts of the fire was being doused by a nearby river. She got an idea. Blaze violently shook the stalks as hard as she could and the monster blindly walked towards the river and tripped, falling in and taking Blaze with it. As the monster was doused and sinking fast, it took Blaze under the water with the rapid river. It's mouth opened underwater and through the blackness, she saw the Flaming Stone coming out from it's mouth in a midst of bubbles. She swam to it.
However, she was quickly losing blood. Just as she grabbed hold of it, she suddenly lost consciousness. Before blacking out, she saw the world being lifted out from under her.
.(An undetermined amount of time later...)
Slowly the world came back into vision for Blaze the Cat. But what came to her vision was not the blue silhouette of Sonic, her boyfriend, but rather, the Blue Pikmin from before. It cocked it's head to the side and made a sort of noise. Tails appeared in her vision now. "She's conscious!" He said. The Mario Brother's red and green combo also showed up and smiled down at her. "Where?..." she started to say, interrupted by Tails, who said, "You're awake just out of that river there. We saved you from drowning and close your wound."
"Where's Sonic!?" she said. Tails looked puzzled at the others and he said, "You mean...he wasn't with you?"
Blaze was at a loss for words. The moment that came, however, she instantly ran off. The Mario Brothers said "Mama mia..." and everyone ran after her, including the miniscule Captain Olimar and the blue Pikmin.
.(Hours later...)
The search party had found where Sonic had landed, and a trail of his blood led from there to a clearing (where they figured he had collapsed), but he wasn't there. Answer, found.
Up above was the Egg Blimp, a huge bandaid in place of where a crack in the Blimp had occurred. It was just now starting to take off. Just as it did, however, the Mario Brothers had jumped aboard. Tails had held back a wounded Blaze from joining. The cat's wound had just reopened and started to bleed through the wraps. Blaze felt a little woozy but Tails dragged her away to the Blue Typhoon fast enough to help her.
.(Egg Blimp...)
Dr. Eggman now had Sonic, finally, and he's weakened at that. Croix had just finished some sort of ritual when Sonic was captured. Eggman was on his way to him when the Mario Brothers were spotted on board. "Intruder alert! Intruder alert!" sounded the alarm. Sigma's neck sparked and said, in a buzzing noise, "Dammit, just blew a beaker!"
Egg pawns (what was left of their numbers, anyway) attacked the plumbers, but were no match. Why? Because they smoke marijuana. STILL THINK DRUGS ARE COOL!?
Sentinel pushed buttons like a madman. "No good no good no goood!" he said, "we're already running out of emergency power!"
Eggman Nega pushed a button on the comms. "All units..." he said, "...KILL THAT HEDGEHOG NOW!!" he let go. Everyone looked at him, but he simply said, "This is our chance! We can get rid of him here and now!" The villains then escaped.
.(Prison block...)
Sonic regained consciousness to find himself strapped to a machine. The robots there had just been given some kind of order and had trained their guns on him. Luigi defeated them before they could fire a shot, though. The machine turned off and he stumbled off, barely even able to stand up because of his wound (which was not even bandaged up). He held onto it to keep his blood in to little avail. Luigi gave him a wrap and he used first aid, but that wouldn't save him in the long run.
.(Bridge...)
This was it. "Eggman!" Sonic declared, "you ready for this?" The Mario Brothers spun around and then pointed at Eggman in some silly fashion. The bald scientist laughed at this. "Not this time, Sonic. Now, see the power of a true god!" Croix's eyes glowed red and a magic circle appeared. The alien that attacked the Blimp from before reappeared, only it was red and black and certainly stronger. Eggman laughed and then disappeared in a ship that took them into orbit onto the Crimson Egg.
The beast roared. And the Blimp was slowly descending into the unforgiving fire below.
Oh, and remember, LB is the block button.
It was a seemingly unnatural creature, born from the planet. But how it had changed. Croix had done something...unnatural to it. It was evil and out for blood. And it can shoot lasers from it's eyes. Like it's doing right now. Sonic just barely dodged it, his wound bleeding through the wraps. To remedy this, Luigi hoisted Sonic over his shoulders, the slightly plump plumber easily lifting him up with Sonic sitting on his shoulders.
Luigi was surprisingly agile, able to jump even higher then Mario. However, Luigi, when running from the laser, seemed to have a little traction problem, his feet sliding a little before he could stop or change direction. Which was a bad thing, as Luigi didn't have enough to prevent himself from falling off the Blimp. Sonic held onto the ledge and pulled the both of them up to see a raging face at theirs.
He smiled. Sonic smiled. He flipped Luigi up into the air, panic on his face. He landed on the monster's back and he held onto what appeared to be it's face, hands covering it's eyes. Like a bull, the monster raged around. Luigi was screaming in a rather hilarious fashion whilst holding on. The other two sweat dropped. Mario took his hammer and Sonic gave him a speed boost by spinning in place. Mario jumped on top, the spin flinging him forward. Luigi saw this, screamed, and let go, falling to the ground.
Luigi promptly crawled away.
The older Mario Brother slammed his hammer as hard as he could onto the monster-alien, and, seeing as how it was just a foot before the edge, fell to it's doom. It could've flown, but they were already crashing when that happened and it perished in the fire.
Or so they thought...
From the depths of the flames the monster took a new form, seeming to absorb the flames to grow in strength. Indeed, it was now like a bug on fire, practically. Tails' X Tornado picked the trio up just before the Blimp exploded, saving them.
"Whew..." went all four of them at such a close encounter. The monster fired it's eye beams at them to hinder them, but to no avail, they had escaped. "Tails, we have to beat that thing..." said Sonic, weakly. "We will," said Tails.
.(Blue Typhoon...)
"It's done!" said the Professor, "now to take care of that fire! Load the missile bay with six of the special bombs now!" he commanded. The Rogues took care of that and soon enough, aqua colored bombs filled the guns. "Ready..."
The guns took aim at the raging monster from a couple miles away (though the monster was still clearly visible).
"Aiiiiim..." said the Professor, and with a wave of his cane, he said, "Fire!!"
Six of the bombs were fired and they hit dead on the monster. At first, nothing. Then an explosion that was distant at first, then grew to a catastrophany that was heard even at the medical part of the ship by Blaze. Even rocked the ship.
The smoke cleared and what was now in sight was a frosty wasteland. It soon melted, however, to show the smoked remains of the forest. The creature was frozen solid, but now it had fallen to the ground and shattered, destroying it. Some sort of reddish gas escaped it as it shattered.
Who knows...
.(On board the Blue Typhoon...)
The couple of Sonic and Blaze were recovering in the medical block while the Professor talked about what happened. "As you can see..." he said, "with the Rogues' help, we managed to create an 'ice bomb' with the strength of a hydrogen explosion...coupled with antifreeze to make it melt almost as soon as it finishes it's detonation."
Some clapped. Knuckles was still trying to figure out what kind of dog a Bothan looked like.
Tails had left the bridge to go to the medical block.
.(Medical block...)
"...are you sure this won't hurt me?..." said Sonic. Now, while he was definently not afraid of a shot, he was still a little nervous (we all are, really. Except Vietnam veterans. Those guys don't know what that word means) about the whole idea. After all, wasn't he bleeding enough?
But...when your doctor at the time is Anth M. Southworth...
Anth had pulled out a syringe with a rather odd liquid in it. "Oh no, this won't hurt me a bit..." he said, walking to Sonic, holding Blaze's hand (she had her shot administered by Amy) for comfort. He said, "Yeah...but will it hurt me?" Anth looked at him and spun his head on a 360 degree axis.
"Huh...you betcha!" Anth said, stabbing his arm with the syringe and pressing his thumb on the button, injecting Sonic with the unknown liquid. Sonic's pupils dilated and he suddenly felt a bit of anger for almost no reason. Sonic stood up perfectly and wriggled where he stood and started to move quite mechanically around the room, then sped up and started to run around for the next minute or so. When he was done, Sonic sat down, then laid down and almost fell asleep, but managed to ask "What the hell was that?"
Anth put the needle away. "That was penicillin, mixed with disinfectants to make sure your wound didn't get infected...oh, and a teensy bit of anabolic steroids thrown in there to help you heal."
To anyone out there, steroids are BAD. But for medical purposes, such as helping a wound heal or to speed up your metabolism, steroids are very very GOOD. However, a little lesson here. Sonic is a hedgehog, as we obviously know, but to his species of humanoid hedgy, at least to his family, have a serious reaction to steroids, even the tinniest droplet. First, it makes them wily. Then a massive rush of energy. And then, before you know it, exhausted from overwork of the various muscles of the body, not all of which had superhuman qualities.
Sonic sat up to smooch Blaze's cheek lightly and said, "Nighty night, Blazey Dazey," and fell from La-La Land into a deep sleep almost instantly. Blaze shrugged and decided to take a walk.
.(Tails' position...)
He had made it to around the Security Dorm before he just collapsed. No one was around to see it.
"She's dead, you know," called a voice from his head, "you just don't know it."
Tails looked around. There was darkness everywhere. Not just darkness, but a black, hissing smoke. "Who're you?..."
"Your god," he said.
"I don't have a god...I don't think..." he said, "This is just a dream. I tripped and fell and probably hit my head!" Tails was obviously scared of this awfully real 'dream'.
"Okay, fine," said the voice.
A massive tablet appeared. It was rectangular in shape, taller then it was wide. The figure depicted on the tablet was vaguely humanoid, with a single eye where a human's head would normally be.
The eye glowed. "Mortals often speak of emotions as weapons. I agree; a weapon that anyone can harness. I want your weapons. Give them to me."
Tails understood, somewhat. "No! Why should I?!"
"Otherwise I'll make you forget."
"Forget what?..." asked Tails. He was growing fearful of the thing of his mind. Was it really his mind?
"That, fox boy..." it said, "is the right question." The eye glowed red now.
Tails felt something build in his stomach. At first, he thought he was just going to vomit. But no.
He certainly wished it was just a spasm to vomit. Tails collapsed to the ground and slowly, but surely, found that he was going to forget something. Not something...
...everything.
"Tails...Tails...Tails...Tails..." the tablet repeated his name, "she's calling. That one girl. You know. THAT one..."
"Who...who's calling me?..." asked Tails, curled up on the ground.
"Oh, that's right...who?..." it said. It disappeared.
As soon as it did, Tails found himself on the ground of the Blue Typhoon. He was curled up into something you might find an actual fox in. Amy had been shaking him for a minute or two. "Tails, you're okay..."
"Ahhhh!!" Tails was frightened and he backed into a wall in a frenzy. Tails breathed incredibly quick, too quick for his own good as he felt his heartbeat quicken. This girl scared him somehow. She was talking to him like she knew him.
Amy looked in bewilderment. "Tails?...It's me, Amy...are you ok?" she reached her hand out. Tails backed further down the hallway wall, falling over by accident. He quickly scrambled up and looked around. Tails was frightened by everything around him. His fox face darting around the hallway, at the metal floor, walls, and ceiling. As he was doing this, Amy had picked him up and started to run towards the medical block.
.(Medical block...)
It was bad. Sonic had awoken as soon as he heard what happened. It was that bad. Amy had put the quivering fox onto a bed. He was still looking, his head turning from viewpoint to viewpoint at everything.
Several minutes later, Anth and the Professor had their solution they surely didn't like. The Professor told the news. "It's bad..."
"What is?..." Sonic was looking quite worried right now, "He just fell, right?..."
von Dyke shook his head and said, "I wish it were, Master Sonic, but somehow...Master Tails has forgotten everything." "Everything?..." said Amy.
"Everything. You, me, the Blue Typhoon, even Miss Cosmo...He no longer remembers who he was or who his friends are, only his basic instincts remain--such as his knowledge that he is a fox with two tails--but he doesn't know how to use his tails to fly. I can't explain it...amnesia has remaining memories, but this...it's like he's been brainwashed somehow."
Sonic ran into the room Tails was in, "No way!!" he said. Tails was obviously spooked by Sonic's sudden outburst and Tails had scrambled to the end of the bed against the wall. Sonic was disheartened by the whole thing. "Tails?..." he said, "do you...are you okay?..."
He just sat there, breathing too quickly and staring at him in fear. Amy came in and he started to breath a little slower, seeming to recognize Amy as a bit of a mother figure (or so he thinks). "Tails, it's Sonic..." Sonic said, "Your best friend..."
"Everyone keeps...calling me T-Tails!...Is that my name?..." he asked. An unbelievable question. "Well...technically, it's Miles, but-"
"Then call me Miles if that's my name!" he said, not in anger but in disbelief that his name was Tails. "Your name is Miles Prower, but you like Tails because...huff...You don't remember me at all?..." he said, stepping towards him. "S-Stay back!" said Tails, "Don't come closer!"
And stop he did. "Tails, you're breathing too fast, try to relax..." said Amy, sitting on the side of them bed while looking at him. While Tails did breath more slowly now, the rush sent him down on the bed, asleep. Amy tucked him in and they left.
"...I don't believe this!" said Sonic, "he's FORGOTTEN!!"
Cosmo was peering around the corner while the older peeps were talking and overheard everything. "Forgotten...everything...even me?..." she said, "Tails..."
END OF EPISODE 28
